Universities

Universities provide hundreds of thousands of work placements to students every year – helping to enhance their student’s employability in a competitive job market. Placement administration often sits disjointedly within different university schools or departments – all working in isolation of each other using their own processes and IT systems.

With SignedUp, Universities can use one flexible platform to streamline the whole process, whether managed centrally or by different departments, saving valuable time and money in the process.

SignedUp is not restricted to placements – it can manage a range of careers related services from advice and resources through to job vacancies, apprenticeships and mentoring opportunities. With it’s membership management features, Universities can also use the platform to manage their alumni – one portal that students can use throughout their time at university and beyond.

SignedUp can be up and running very quickly and can easily be adapted to suit the specific needs of different programmes e.g. overseas programmes. The portal is also designed to reflect specific branding.

Benefits

More effective business relationship management – easier engagement with local businesses and employers

Time savings – more efficient process and stakeholders can engage directly

Flexibility – use the platform to run multiple initiatives from placements, through to post graduation jobs and alumni communications

Cost savings – one flexible system to replace a myriad of other systems helps to reduce costs

“The evidence that placements, internships and other work experience are extremely valuable to students, both in terms of their academic performance and their employability skills, is strong (for example, Driffield et al 2011, Green 2011, Reddy and Moores 2010, Little and Harvey 2006, NCWE 2003). These analyses are supported by Alan Milburn’s report on fair access to the professions and the CBI and university UK’s joint study on preparing graduates for work. – Professor Sir Tim Wilson DL, A Review of Business-University Collaboration

Making mentoring manageable

The mentoring feature has been developed in collaboration with the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), making sure that the administrative software is tailored to the needs of the education environment and University’s processes.

SignedUp’s mentoring feature creates an environment in which mentees can be easily matched with mentors in one system – making the process very simple and straightforward.

The mentoring system massively reduces administrative workloads by combining all steps of the programme in one place, supporting each step in the process from matching to meeting. Forms submitted by both mentee and mentor candidates are all held within the programme, you can search and match against specific criteria and administrators can pair the best-suited candidates. Once matched, administrators can quickly and easily trigger the sending of e-mails to notify both mentors and mentee of their pairing. No disparate information and communication processes here!

The benefits of our system aren’t just limited to supporting the matching process, SignedUp also offers other useful features such as Meetings – helping to set up meetings for the newly matched mentees and mentors and to continue running the programmes beyond the initial matching process.

In a time where budgets are under a lot of pressure, our features can help alleviate the stresses and support the long-term running of beneficial and meaningful mentoring programmes. Having one central system helps significantly reduce the administrative burden. For example, UWS was able to take on the administration of their largest cohort yet in just the first few weeks of running with the software and found the whole process was less time consuming and stressful! The SignedUp platform contributed towards UWS being awarded Education Project of the Year by the Scottish Mentoring Network. Read more about our work with UWS.